


Bird and Rat

by Cinerari



Category: Captain Harlock
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dragon!Zero, Fae!Yama, Gen, Harpy!Harlock, Hurt/Comfort, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 02:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16845703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinerari/pseuds/Cinerari
Summary: Young orphan Daiba lives on the streets, fending for himself until he lands on the bad side of some older boys. He's saved by an odd bird with black wings and a scarred face.





	Bird and Rat

**Author's Note:**

> An old AU fic that I had planned to write more for but never did. Mostly silly and sweet.

My good luck charm, if it could be called that, was a black feather the length of my forearm. I’d kept it tucked in my coat ever since I found it in an alley one night. Other kids said they’d seen its owner in-full - a giant bird monster with crazed eyes and blood on its talons, they said. I thought I saw it a couple times, a flash of a shadow across the moon. But it could have been my imagination or the bite of hunger making me hallucinate.

We were always hungry.

Digging around in the dumpsters of grocery stores was our best bet, but the older kids claimed those like they were something to own. If I wanted food, they said, I had to be their lackey. I hated running stupid errands for those bastards, so I took to stealing instead. There was no one out at night to steal from except the occasional drunk, so I stole from the older kids every chance I got.

I rode on luck for a while, nabbing things from their storage in an abandoned building. I was small, light on my feet, but I was clumsy. One mistake was all it took.

The biggest one threw me into a brick wall, my skull cracking against it. It scraped off every inch of skin it touched and clogged the fresh, stinging wounds with dirt. Before I could scramble to my feet, the toe of a grimy boot crunched my nose into a bloody mess of pain. I couldn’t breathe through the blood, draining down my throat and dripping onto my shirt. My arms shielded my face to stop the next kick as heat pulsed through my face. Another kick slammed into my gut. I couldn’t tell if it was from the same boot. When a third kick crushed my chest, the world seemed to spin.

I didn’t know why I’d ever expected the teenagers to fight fair, but three of them against someone half their age seemed like overkill. As I held my bruised insides together, one grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me to my feet. It felt like thousands of needles were shoved into my skin. I thought my scalp might rip off.

“Stealing is a crime,” the tallest said, with that high-and-mighty tone they always used. “You have to work for your food. You can’t just steal it.”

“You don’t work for it,” I spat. With my nose stuffed, I sounded like I was speaking through a wall.

They didn’t try to make excuses. They knew they were being bastards about this whole thing. “Hold him down,” the scrawny one in the back ordered. He must have been the leader of the idiots.

The tall one threw me to the ground, pressing his knee into my back. His hand continued clutching my hair and pushed my face into the concrete. It ate into my cheek as I struggled, but I was half his size. There was no chance for me to throw him off.

“If you’re going to use those grubby little hands of yours to steal, I think you’d be better off without them,” the leader said, smiling down at me. He waved a hammer around like a baton, and my heart jumped into my throat. The weight pressing into my back was too much. I couldn’t breathe.

“No!” I demanded in a rasping trill. “Let me go!”

“What happened to all that talk from earlier?” the leader snorted. “Shut him up, and hold his arm out flat for me.”

Some sick-smelling cloth was placed below my nose, but I shook myself free of it. I bucked and rolled like an angry bull, jerking my wrist out of every attempt the big one made at grabbing it. With a growl, the tall one lifted my face from the ground just to slam it back down. It seemed to happen a few times, but I couldn’t tell. The world became a buzz of sights and sounds. Something warm and wet coated the side of my head. I felt as though I had no control over my body, or maybe no body at all. I couldn’t move, couldn’t…think. I could only lie there, feeling.

I felt cold, chilled down to every broken bone. I wanted to sleep, but the sound of screams kept me from it. At first, I wondered if I might be the one screaming. Maybe my hands were bloodied messes across the concrete. It didn’t matter. I was probably dying anyway.

How unfair.

At least the weight against my back eased. I could breathe again, though it felt like I was being stabbed every time I did.

Careful hands nudged beneath me, but a whine tore from my throat as I was rolled over. The hands worked even slower then, slipping under my knees and back to pull me up. I thought my eyes were open, thought I was looking at the night sky, but it was so dark. “Where…where are the stars?” I asked the one holding me. I could only imagine he was Death.

“Hang on,” he whispered. “I will try to move carefully.” There was a gust of wind, and then I felt suspended, floating in nothing. Surely this was it. This was the end.

“Can you see them now?” he asked.

I blinked a few times, focusing on the millions of pinpricks of light. I’d never seen so many before, usually only the brightest shone through the city’s smog. “Look,” I breathed. “There’s Sirius. It’s so much brighter here.” As much as I wanted to stare at them forever, my eyes closed against me.

“Don’t fall asleep yet,” he stressed, his worn voice stretched thin with worry. But I felt so comfortably weightless, and breathing was so painful. Cool, quiet death sounded like all I could hope for.

“It’s alright,” I assured him. “No one will miss me.”

He kept talking to me, but his voice was so soothing it led me to sleep faster. I slept dreamlessly, my pains pulling me back to teeter at the edge of consciousness when they flared up. After some time, they would ease enough for me to slip away again, but I felt like I wasn’t getting any rest.

As the pain flared once again, someone’s voice pulled me toward the waking world, low with a rumbling growl. He sounded like he was speaking through an idling engine. “This is foolish,” he snapped. “You can’t keep a child.”

“It’s just for now,” another man answered, his voice smooth like the dark sea. “I’ll see to it that he heals.”

“That’s what hospitals are for. Humans have their own means of healing. There’s no reason to expose this boy to magic and-” He paused with an angered huff of breath. “-you!”

It looked like they weren’t going to shut up any time soon, so I pried my aching eyes open. In fact, all of me ached. I felt like I’d gone through the tumble setting on one of the rickety dryers at the laundromat. But I was warm, at least. I rested against something smooth and soft as cat’s fur. It curled around my shoulder and draped over me like a blanket. It was a black something, shining in the warm yellow firelight of the room. I reached up to brush my hand down it, and it moved.

It wasn’t like it shifted from gravity or something. No, it actually moved on its own. It was part of a living thing – a big, black wing. I could see the longer feathers at the tip. My gasp stuck in my throat as pain stabbed into my lungs. I clutched at my chest, curling away from the monstrous wing.

“Easy, easy,” the smoother voice breathed. As firm arms pulled me to his chest, a whimper escaped my throat. Being moved swelled every pulsing pain around my body.

The angry one sighed. “Poor thing. I suppose we don’t have much of a choice at this point. It seems best not to aggravate his injuries further. I’ll try to retrieve one of the fae healers, but you know how they are about humans.”

My words seemed to roll together into one as I spoke. “Where’s the bird?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why it was the first question out of my mouth. I had a lot more questions, like where I was and why this man thought he should be allowed to hold me.

“Ah, well,” he stalled. I managed to tilt my head enough to see him, a twenty-something guy with windswept brunet hair down past his chin. A black patch covered one eye, and a scar trailed under the other like a thorny vine. He seemed determined not to look directly at me as he scratched his hair back into place. “I am the bird,” he muttered.

I was no expert on birds, but he looked pretty human to me. The other guy sighed behind me. As I tried to look his way, my vision swam and blurred. Stifling another whimper, I pressed my hand to my face against a fresh rush of pain.

“Hurry,” the bird hissed.

“I’m going,” the other snapped. I felt a rush of wind hit my back; then there was only the crackling of the fire and the bird’s soft breaths.

I didn’t want to be there, held against him like some baby, but I couldn’t move. I stayed relaxed only to ease the pain. Even the rustle of those big black wings didn’t convince me to move. One curled over me along with his arm. I waited for talons or a massive beak to sink into my back and finish me off, but instead the bird spoke again.

“Are you still awake?” he asked. “I’m not sure if you should sleep with a head injury like that. You may not wake up again.”

I grumbled to let him know I wasn’t dead yet.

“I should introduce myself,” he continued. I wished he would shut up so I could go back to sleep. “My name is Harlock, and I am a harpy.”

Right. “My name is Tadashi Daiba,” I mumbled. “And I’m a unicorn.”

“Ah. If you have the energy to make jokes, I guess you’ll be alright. But I  _am_  a harpy. I have the wings and everything.” The one at my back flapped.

“Mm-hm.” I didn’t care if he was a harpy. I was tired. “But you have arms too. Harpies don’t have arms.”

“That would be a terrible way to adapt. I’m not sure why you humans are convinced we look like that, but your ‘angels’ are allowed to have arms and wings. Why shouldn’t I be allowed?”

“So you’re an angel?” I breathed. He did save me. I could remember his voice calling down to me, trying to keep me awake just like he was now. Unfortunately, now he was succeeding.

“I’m nothing divine,” he said. “I’m just what you thought – a bird. Now why don’t you tell me what you were doing in that alley, Daiba?”

“Getting my ass kicked.”

“The kids in this city used to all stick together,” he said. I could hear the frown in his voice. “So you ended up on the wrong side of one of the gangs, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, those bastards,” I grumbled. “I wasn’t going to be their dog, so they didn’t like me. Caught me stealing a few times, but I’d outrun them before.”

He shifted a bit with a nod. “You have quite the mouth for such a young boy. Besides the cursing, you seem very intelligent for a street kid.”

“I wasn’t always a street kid,” I growled. “I went to school, and my dad taught me a bunch. I’m not stupid.”

“No, just a bit stubborn.”

So what? I had to be stubborn if I wanted to survive. Ending up in the foster care system in this city was a death sentence, and then there were the kids who got plucked off the street. We didn’t know what happened to them. We just knew we didn’t want to be one of them.

“What happened to this father of yours?” the bird asked. He was awfully nosy.

“He’s gone,” I snapped. “Anyway, where are we? Are you going to sacrifice me or eat me or something? Just get it over with, okay?”

He sighed. “I thought you weren’t stupid. I just want to help you, Tadashi. You were hurt, so I’m going to watch over you until you’re put back together again. For now, you’re at my home.” His fingers brushed through my hair, my bruises tingling from the fear of him touching them.

“Your nest you mean?” I couldn’t hold back a smile.

“Don’t act all proud. You’re not the first to crack that joke.”

Apparently we were in an abandoned building downtown. “That’s why there’s a fire,” he said. “I don’t have electricity, but I have managed to cheat my way into running water. I might be willing to pay for amenities, but the city officials don’t take too kindly to me taking residence here.”

He started telling me a story, something about how the city was built over a hub for magical activity, and all the creatures and things had to blend in or hide to escape being killed or captured. I could recall him saying something about how he refused to hide completely, but the rest faded into nothing. He was so caught up in his story, he didn’t notice me falling asleep.

Unfortunately, I woke up again, but my pains were dulled into memories. Warmth like a sunbeam covered my forehead as people talked over me again.

“How do you plan to feed him?” someone new asked. They sounded directly above me, some young guy.

Harlock answered, grumbling. “I’ll just buy more food from my supply lines. I’m not completely incompetent.”

“You let him fall asleep,” the guy scolded.

“I tried to wake him up.”

I opened my eyes to see someone’s palm hanging over them. There was a green glow to it, like a weird lamp. “I’m awake,” I said.

The hand moved, revealing eyes as brown as mud staring down at me. Strange, vine-like tattoo patterns traced around them like a mask for a ball. Little pink flower buds dotted his cheekbones and the crinkles of his eyes. He looked twenty or something, with short, fluffy brown hair and the pointiest ears I’d ever seen. “Ah! Hello there!” He smiled. “How are you feeling?”

I must not have been feeling very well because the buds of ink sprouted into full blossoms. He noticed me squinting at them, and his smile faded along with the flowers. I blinked, and they were buds once again.

“Did you drug me?” I growled.

The bastard rolled his eyes at me. “Of course not. I don’t have any needles, and you couldn’t have choked anything down while unconscious. Humans always jump to the worst conclusions. What would I gain from drugging you anyway?” He tried to poke at my forehead until I swatted his hand away. As he scowled, the vines twisted and curled around his eyes into a thicker mask, thorns sprouting from them. A buzzing, whispering sound filled my ears like a hummingbird’s wings. He must have given me something.

“Calm down, Yama,” Harlock sighed. “It’s reasonable for him to be cautious. I know you don’t trust humans, but he’s just a boy, and he’s just as scared of us.”

Finally able to move on my own, I sat up. Yama said nothing, his eyes trained away from me. He sat next to the old spring mattress I’d been laid out on. Around me was some sort of apartment or living room. There was a dingy couch one side and that fire on the other. Looked like a kitchen around the corner. All-in-all, it wasn’t much different than the bases some of the older kids made in run-down buildings, except the massive hole in the ceiling. Some boards covered it, but it looked big enough to fit a horse through. A rope hung down from it, tied to a pulley on the floor. A glance at the door showed it to be boarded shut, so I guessed the bird went out through the ceiling. What a weirdo.

I finally got to see him in full, standing against the wall behind me. He really could have passed for some demon, almost human except the big black wings folded at his back. The tips of them nearly brushed the floor. His feet marred the whole image, massive taloned claws resting against the scarred floorboards. They were ugly black things. Looked like they could kill a man with one kick.

He noticed me staring and flexed one foot, stretching the toes out before curling them into a ball.

“You are a bird,” I said.

“Does it bother you?”

My face screwed up at the question. Did it bother me? Should it? “I dunno. I think it’s weird. Seems like they’d be hard to walk on.”

Harlock smiled, but Yama sighed. “You always manage to find the strange ones, Harlock,” he said.

Harlock’s grin widened as he pushed himself from the wall. “Like you and Zero?”

Yama crossed his arms, and that buzzing sound started again. There seemed to be a flurry of movement behind him, too fast to pin down. I shot my hand toward the air at his back, trying to catch it, but it slapped my palm.

As I jerked my hand back, Yama gave out a hiss of pain. “Be careful,” Harlock said as his hands appeared under my arms. Before I could wriggle away, he picked me up and tossed me into a carry like some baby. “Faerie wings are fragile.”

I started to tell him to put me down or I would punch his dumb face, but he was so serious when he said faerie. From my new spot I had to look down to see Yama, patting a shimmering wing stemming from his back. They looked like painted glass, green veins connecting the rest. They looked like massive dragonfly wings, four of them stuck on the back of a human, a really pissed off human.

“Faeries are supposed to be tiny,” I decided. This was not a faerie. I’d been drugged for sure, or I was dreaming. Or dead.

Puffing his cheeks, Yama glared up at me. Harlock just chuckled. “He’s quite the skeptic.”

Yama jumped to his feet, his shoulders scrunched up near his pointy ears. He was pretty much at eye-level with me, way shorter than Harlock. “You’re lucky you’re so cute,” he sighed.

“I’m not cute!” I roared, but he may not have heard me through the flash of green light. The buzzing returned, softer this time. As the light dimmed enough to squint through, I found a pocket-sized version of him hovering in the center of it. His brown pants and green shirt shrunk down to a doll’s size. Tiny wings beat in an endless flurry at his back. It looked like a lot of work.

“There you go,” Harlock said. “Is he a real faerie now?”

“How do his clothes shrink?” I asked, holding my palm out flat for him. Cautiously, he placed one foot down on the tips of my fingers, then the other. It was like the tiny feet of mice crawling along my skin as he tiptoed to my palm. There, he plopped down, crossing his legs.

“Yama is the one who healed you,” Harlock said. “Are all your pains gone?”

“Healed?” I blinked. “Like magic? I don’t feel anything. Uh, thanks, I guess.”

Yama nodded.

It was a good thing he was sitting down because something crashed into the roof like a falling tree, and I jolted so hard Yama fell on his side.

I stared up at the roof, waiting for it to cave in. “What the Hell?”

“Oh, it’s just Zero,” Harlock said.

The hatch on the roof flew open, and a man fell through to smash into the floor. Rain fell in with him until he pulled the rope and closed the hatch once again. “I hate the rain,” he growled, that same gravelly voice from earlier. He was soaked through, reddish hair plastered down around red, reptilian eyes. Harlock’s feet may have been weird, but this guy was in a whole different league.

He was mostly man, a little older than Harlock and Yama and taller than both of them. He had a huge nose, but it didn’t look that weird compared to all his other parts. He had a tail like a lizard, covered in red scales with a black point at the end. But horns sprouted from his head like some weird deer, shaped like black lightning bolts. His wings were like a bat’s, black flappy parts and red veiny parts.

“I was drugged,” I decided.

Yama flew up to my shoulder and leaned close to my ear. “Zero is a dragon,” he said, his voice as quiet as a whisper.

Now, I’d never seen a dragon in person but… “Aren’t dragons, I dunno, big lizards?”

Harlock started to snicker, but with how offended Zero looked, it turned into a barking laugh.

“Shut up, Harlock,” Zero growled, actually growled. I added dog to the list of animals he was made from. “But I am a dragon. Anyway, little one, I got you some clothes and snacks. I know Harlock doesn’t have anything worth eating in this place.”

“Excuse you,” Harlock said. “I have plenty.”

Zero slung a backpack off his shoulder and into his arms. “Children can’t survive on instant noodles and wine,” he said. He dug in the pack until he pulled out some of those little cakes wrapped in plastic. I hadn’t eaten one of those since dad was alive. “They seem to have survived to rain alright,” he decided as he walked over and dropped it into my hands. “There you go, little one.”

I was surrounded by weirdos, but if I was going to get cake out of the deal, that was fine with me.


End file.
